Abstract
Monetary sanctions are a ubiquitous part of court systems. Previous studies have focused largely on these sanctions at the state level or solely on large urban jurisdictions. However, court systems differ considerably across communities of varying population size, composition, and density. This article examines how differences in court structure and organizational dynamics in communities across the rural-urban continuum lead to differences in how court actors consider the role of monetary sanctions. Using interviews with court actors and ethnographic observations in communities across four states, we find that the practical and symbolic nature of monetary sanctions varied by the acquaintanceship density of the court and community. These interpersonal dynamics influenced courtroom considerations, monetary sanctions’ relationship to local finances, and actors’ positioning toward state-level policy. These findings emphasize the importance of court and community context and structure in assessing the law-in-action both when conducting research and designing reform.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 200-220 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | RSF |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Gabriela Kirk is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University, United States. Kristina J. Thompson is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia Southern University, United States. Beth M. Huebner is a professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, United States. Christopher Uggen is Regents Professor and Martindale Chair in Sociology, Law, and Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, United States. Sarah K.S. Shannon is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Georgia, United States. © 2022 Russell Sage Foundation. Kirk, Gabriela, Kristina J. Thompson, Beth M. Huebner, Christopher Uggen, and Sarah K.S. Shannon. 2022. “Justice by Geography: The Role of Monetary Sanctions Across Communities.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 8(1): 200–220. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2022.8.1.09. This research was funded by a grant to the University of Washington from Arnold Ventures (Alexes Harris, PI). Partial support for this research came from a Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development research infrastructure grant, P2C HD042828, to the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. We thank the faculty and graduate student collaborators of the Multi-State Study of Monetary Sanctions for their intellectual contributions to the project. Direct correspondence to: Gabriela Kirk, at [email protected], Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, 1810 Chicago Ave, Evanston, IL 60208, United States. Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Russell Sage Foundation.
Keywords
- Acquaintanceship density
- Monetary sanctions
- Punishment